Parting shots

Night Lights

Hoi An - Siem Reap - Don Kohne - Hoi An

Shanghai - Hanoi - Hanoi - Shanghai

The Heat

Hoi An hotel staff adding ice to the pool

The Feeet

Socialist Realism

Got to love this stuff

Chen and I - One for the books

Trip has come to an end. I’m not a blogger and I’m a bit out of steam. Not to mention that I couldn’t blog from China since the government blocks blogger.com. So here are some fast notes I took while in Shanghai.

Where Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam (and probably most of China) are the past, this is the future, in steroids. A million communist banners flying over town cannot conceal the gusto with which this city has embraced capitalism. The signs are everywhere (the luxury stores, the fashionable people, the high rises, the cars, the rush), but nowhere more than in the extraordinary skyline of Pudong. Loved it. Period.

very slow Manhattan while watching night fall over Pudong

Loved it more because of how much I knew about it from the fabulous mystery series by Qiu Xiaolong that centers around the poetry-quoting Inspector Chen. I can’t tell you how good it feels to land in a place for the first time and know it. From the impoverished and crowded shikumen (poor people’s dwellings) that Big Bucks (fast rich cats), with their frantic building and land speculation, have not managed to completely eradicate. To cruel foods (monkey’s brains, snake blood, and a number of other ‘delicacies’ extracted from a live animal that the diners enjoy among the animal’s screams) which (fortunately) are either not offered anymore, or perhaps you have to know somebody… To just weird foods (I couldn’t find a place that offered ginger steamed fish lips, though I could have eaten a pig’s snout.) To stalls that offer amazing and strange things for nothing (still around, I think I ate a rat one day.) To the lost prestige of Shanghai’s No. 1 Department Store (you could call it Macy’s today). To hot water shops, which surprised a young local when I asked about them (though I think I saw steaming giant vats at a shikumen that might have been it). To thinking of the refrain of one of Chen’s helpers (“there are things a man will do, and there are things a man will not do”) and realizing that in Shanghai there are no things a man will not do, or eat, or wear.

There were also groups of Chinese tourists who seemed to be coming from very far away, both in space and time. Old, with faces burned and carved as leather, they looked up and around in admiration, and laughed nervously in the presence of foreigners. The twenty first century has left them behind. A few wore Mao jackets or some version of it. Some were attired in clothes cheaper than the cheaper goods we import from their country. Because of the many historical references in Mr. Xiaolong's novels, I also could pretend I knew a little bit about them. Did you lose people in the great famine, I wondered? Were you an intellectual once, sent to the country for reeducation during the cultural revolution? Did your fortunes fall and soar and fall again according to the party’s whims? Was anyone in your family branded a ‘bad element’? Did your fish-stall-owning uncle (a capitalist according to Mao) killed your chances at a better future?

I haven’t read anything more substantial about Shanghai or China than Qiu Xiaolong’s books. Yet I had a higher enjoyment of Shanghai for having read them. If I have to close, for now, with some parting words, I’d say that nothing gives you a truer flavor of a place than its fiction. So here’s to the books, from a satisfied costumer.

Watching Iron Man in China

For a much needed foot break in Shanghai, I headed to a theatre, ready to watch Iron Man 3 in a language I do not understand. But, one, I’d seen it already. And, two, you can watch most of these movies with the sound off. Mostly, I wanted to see the Hollywood special for China cut.

In the American version, there is a Mr. Chinese Character who appears for 2 seconds at the beginning, says as much as “Mmm,” and RDJ (Robert Downey, Jr.) replies with the indifferent/pretend to be funny “well, whatever” (or something like that) of the important man who cannot be bothered. We don’t see Mr. Chinese Character’s reaction to this and he does not appear again.

Before I go to the details of the Chinese version meant to woo Chinese audiences, let me explain that the first shock was that the movie, played to an almost empty theatre with an audience of five locals and legs-up yours truly, played entirely in English, with Chinese subtitles.

In the scenes with Mr. Chinese Character, Mr. CC spoke Chinese, no dubbing. So I have no idea what he said. But I can give you an approximation.

Scene 1 – (longer version of the “Mmm” scene above) – about 10 seconds. Mr. CC: “I am talking here, by myself, making no sense to anyone, so that my Chinese audience can see a Chinese while RDJ is not even in the shot.” Cut to RDJ: “well, whatever.”

Scene 2 – (maybe half way down the movie, many things have happened that this guy has not been a part of, nor has anyone referred to this character in China as part of the story) – about another 10 seconds, talking on the phone by a glass wall (a skyscraper in Beijing?) “I am taking here, by myself, making no sense and adding nothing to the plot, so that my Chinese audience can see a Chinese person speaking Chinese.” Cut back to action.

Scene 3 – (close to the end of the movie, a bit longer, perhaps 35 seconds, for obvious reasons.) He is scrubbing (apparently he is a doctor) next to a nurse. “I am talking here to this super hot nurse, making no sense and adding nothing to the plot, other than seeing me talking to a super hot nurse, did I already say that?” To which nurse replies “really, you think I’m hot,” which he follows with a “Oh, boy, yes, I do.” To which she replies “thanks so much doctor.” “Don’t mention it. I think they are cutting us off.” Cut back to action.

Scene 4 – I am not even sure that this scene happened. If it did, it was close to the scrubbing, very near the end. Even shorter. 7 seconds? He is by the glass wall at the skyscraper, on the phone. “What am I doing here again?” Cut back to action.

Scene 5 – this is just a supposition – he may (or may not) have been the doctor who operates on RDJ at the movie’s end, in a word-less scene. He’s wearing a mask and says nothing. It could have actually been me.

And this was it. Not sure what Hollywood’s intentions were with this. All I can really say is, “well, whatever.” And that my feet were rested.

On the road

The ten Commandments of driving in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos (and probably many other places, but I’m only pontificating about the ones I’ve spent a minute in):

1.     Do as you please (phone, text, phone and text, slow down, stop to have a pee or a smoke, change a tire…)

2.     Wherever you please (middle of the road is great)

3.     Never look before a move (changing lanes, entering a highway, leaving a parking spot)

4.     Honk a lot

5.     Disobey all traffic rules (red lights are for whimps)

6.     Never wear a seatbelt

7.     If you do wear a seatbelt, make sure your passengers don’t

8.     When in doubt, check your instincts, then do the opposite

9.     Special for motorcycles: carry a big load (i.e. your full family and friends or [and] a family-sized refrigerator)

10. Special for pedestrians: good luck

I have a somewhat illustrative movie, from the back of a motorcycle, in Hoi An, but I haven't been able to make it work. Sorry.

Hanoi Stories

Since I didn’t find any, here are some modest suggestions, just to get somebody’s juices started.

During a visit to Ho Chi Mihn’s mausoleum, Vong, a gay tour guide, is thunderstruck by the vision of a tranny in traditional Vietnam woman dress. Vong changes style, becomes Hanoi’s more sought after guide, is quickly imitated by others, only to appear dead under Ho Chi Mihn’s house on stilts. Who did it and why? Possible title: Ho Chi Mihn’s Ho.

Stacey, a naïve American, is reunited with her husband, John, on a romantic cruise of Halong Bay. John has been working with an NGO in Hanoi and an important contact is also on the cruise. After dinner, she goes to their cabin first and is surprised to see a great full moon rising over the peaks in the bay. She can’t believe the beauty, the peace. She looks down at the silvery reflection and she’s jolted by all the rubbish floating in the water. Suddenly, the boat rocks and she hears a faint splash, probably on the other side. More trash, she wonders? When she wakes up the next morning, her husband has disappeared and no one remembers his business contact. Is John dead? Her journey of discovery will take her to the multinational that is dumping illegal waste on the protected bay. Possible title: Halong Dung.

Nguyen Hung chokes while eating a Pho Bo (beef soup), on a street stall in front of a Hanoi backpacker’s hostel, knocking down as he falls a family of four traveling by motorcycle. Hung dies. In the confusion, the two girls in the motorcycle are lost. Local policeman, Philip Dat, investigates. The intrigue will take him from Saigon, to places where Hung had interests, mainly the UK and France. Dat is a big reader, likes to quote the classics and hates it when women talk too much. He is also appalled at the corruption in his precinct. Some want to accuse the transient hostel population and close the case. Philip knows the case is linked to a dangerous international sex ring, currently branching out into selling young girls into prostitution. Possible title: Dat Hung.

Truong is the most beautiful girl in the Huong pagoda. She greets visitors from her boat. She is happy. Suddenly, a Valentino-wearing monk keeps showing up, someone messes with the Choco-Pie Buddha, and man-sized bats take residence in the caves. A clan of vampires has just landed on the sacred site and its leader, a thousand-year-old Chinese princess who can’t stand Truong’s beauty, threatens to destroy the temple and the community for good. Will evil triumph over good? Possible title: Mihn Fang. 

Five days ago, Clara arrived in Hanoi and thought she might have made a mistake. So busy, so crowded, so not what one would expect. But quickly the city warmed its way to her heart, and on her last night she wishes she had more time, not particularly to visit another tourist attraction, but to enjoy the crazy charm of this vibrant city. She is having dinner on a terrace, contemplating an extraordinary electric storm in the distance. She’s fighting tears. Perhaps she had too many Hanoi beers. Among the cacophony of sounds she hears pops, like from a gun. She looks at the street below. Nothing. Suddenly, the noise is on her, coming from atop. Someone jumps from the next building and runs. Jumps again, and falls to his death. Immediately, two armed men also fall on the terrace. After looking down to confirm the first man is dead, they notice Clara. One hits her in the head with the butt of his gun. She wakes up two days later in a hospital, without money, credit cards or passport, and without a memory of who she was. Thus begins a journey of self-discovery in a place where the only unknown is herself. Possible title: Hanoi Confidential

...A good writer, with a love and knowledge of the place, could do much better. But if anyone should take up the task, I for one would read the books.

The Romance of South East Asia

In The Quiet American, Graham Greene’s classic, set in Saigon in the 50’s, an English older journalist and a young American CIA operative fight for the love of a barely legal Vietnamese girl, who happens to be extraordinarily beautify and practically devoid of language. The young American wants to marry her before she speaks. The old Brit, battling wife for a divorce, wonders if she has something to say, or perhaps the problem is that they don’t really speak each other’s language… There is also a manipulative older sister who wants our girl to go with the better provider. Fast forward to today. You’ve heard it: white males on the prowl, pimps and beautiful local girls (barely legal) who’d love you long time. Not much has changed. This is reality.

In The Lover, the Marguerite Duras’s classic, with clipped sentences and odd non-sequiturs, she describes her real-life affair at fifteen with an older Chinese man in Saigon. This was French Indochine, the 1930’s. The precocious young girl, born to a colonial family (poor but white), discovers love, sex and her own allure with an older man who also doesn’t belong (rich but Chinese). Fast forward to today, browse through Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love and you have, more or less, the same theme. Foreign white girl finds love somewhere in former colony, preferably with expat. Goals remain: travel far, revel in the exotic, run into your neighbor (or someone who could be), and marry him. This, by the way, is the fairytale. And in direct contradiction with above male pursuits (good luck Elizabeth Gilbert’s wannabes).

Obviously, people travel in all kinds of groupings. Couples on honeymoons, mass adventure or retired excursion tours, not to mention the backpackers (a class onto themselves). But as long as the reality and fairytale of the two classics remain relevant to someone, these novels will endure. It helps that they are very good reads.